Lunar right crusades against Gillard

Right-wing politics has a habit of discrediting itself through bizarre conspiracy theories. The Birthers movement in the United States is an example of this process: the lunar-right activists who have convinced themselves that Barack Obama is constitutionally ineligible to be President because he was born outside the country.

The release of his birth certificate last year, proving Obama’s birth in Honolulu on August 4, 1961, has had little impact. Opinion polls show that one-in-four Republican voters still doubt the President’s credentials. The Birthers have dismissed the birth certificate as a forgery, another sham in a series of socialist conspiracies.

Not to be outdone, the Australian lunar right, led by former Radio 2UE broadcaster Mike Smith and veteran cartoonist Larry Pickering, has developed an equivalent movement – the aptly-named Brucers.

Like the Birthers, they are obsessed with ancient history: in this case, a belief that Julia Gillard should resign over a trade union financial dispute 20 years ago involving her then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson. No one has ever been charged with an offence and, despite repeated investigations by her political opponents, there is no evidence of Gillard having broken the law.

The Brucers are an example of the damaging impact of obsessiveness in public life. They fit the first rule of fanaticism: when all is lost, redouble your efforts. These political fringe dwellers specialise in myth-making and the harassment of innocent people – not just Gillard, but media figures who stand up to them and refuse to peddle their conspiratorial theories.

Not surprisingly, the anti-Labor newspaper The Australian has given succour to Smith and Pickering, deploying a so-called investigative reporter to pursue the Prime Minister. So far his efforts have not taken the story any further than when the matter was first raised by the Liberal Party in the Victorian Parliament 17 years ago.

The fact that, as a young man, Tony Abbott was charged with damaging public property and faced sexual assault allegations is of no concern to the Murdoch flagship. Its interest in reviewing old legal documents, in sweeping away the dust on yellowing affidavits, is restricted to the pursuit of Labor leaders.

In public life, the best way of dealing with wacky fanatics is through dismissive humour. This is how Obama responded to US entrepreneur and high-profile Birther Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2011:

“No one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter –like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”

The Brucers are a further sign of the Americanisation of Australian politics.

While we have always had fringe right-wing groups in this country, they have never displayed the hateful intensity associated with the Gillard era. Smith and Pickering lead a network of nutters, forever using the internet and social media to spread their poison. Many of them were part of the anti-carbon tax campaign, the Convoy of No Consequence, as Labor’s Anthony Albanese described it. As that effort was discredited, with the new tax having minimal impact on the Australian economy, the lunar-right has rolled on to the Brucer conspiracy, alleging a cover-up to protect Gillard.

The intensity of the Brucers underscores one of the paradoxes of modern politics. At a time when the general public has disengaged from party politics, becoming apathetic about issues and the possibility of progress within the parliamentary system, fringe groups have become more active. MPs now function in a parallel universe: struggling to establish a dialogue with the mainstream community while, at the same time, being bombarded with material from fringe fanatics.

The quality of our democracy has suffered from this malaise. To make sound policies and take a longer view on issues, politicians need to be able to use their constituents as sounding boards, to test new ideas on a receptive community. Whenever nutters dominate this democratic space, MPs have no choice but to withdraw from the consultative process.

Recently, the former head of Treasury, Ken Henry, lamented the poor quality of public policy debate in Australia – as he saw it, the worst in 25 years. The rise of the lunar-right is a leading cause of this problem. Unfortunately, the whole system is suffering for their madness.

Mark Latham is a former federal Labor leader.

The Australian Financial Review

BY Mark Latham

Former ALP leader Mark Latham pulls no punches as he
scrutinises the Australian political landscape and the Labor Party's
fortunes.